


when the sky falls, you're my escape

by thedoortomysterekmind



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Derek Hale Deserves Nice Things, M/M, POV Derek Hale, POV Stiles Stilinski, Season 1, Slow Build, but also not compliant?, stiles stilinski also deserves nice things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:54:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25960147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedoortomysterekmind/pseuds/thedoortomysterekmind
Summary: Derek and Stiles find themselves and each other.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so, this is my first fic ever and it has quickly become my baby.
> 
> i'm trying to write as often as i can and will be adding chapters as i write them so there isn't really going to be a fix schedule to this fic but i assure you, i have big plans for this bad boy. 
> 
> also, this is unbeta'd so all errors, anomalies, and other weird little quirks are totally on me :) that being said, if you would like to beta this fic please let me know, god knows my writing needs it
> 
> kudos and comments are always appreciated, so let me know what you think!

Derek wakes up with a sharp inhale, red eyes glowing and wide with panic, and fear coursing through his veins. Bright, red flames dance in front of his eyes, as if they were really there, scorching his skin, burning his lungs. The phantasms of smoke clog up his nose and throat, making his gums itch with the need to drop his fangs.

He blinks a couple of times, holding back his shift and forcing himself to unclench his fists. Derek sees more than feels that he’s completely drenched in sweat but can’t push himself to do anything about it. 

He stares at the charred planks above his head and wills himself to get up, to get away, to _ run _ , but his limbs feel heavy and stiff like they’re stuffed with wet cotton instead of flesh and blood. 

By the time he manages to get himself up and off his mattress, the delirium has subsided to a low-level discomfort, enough for Derek to walk out the room and into the bathroom. He pulls off his clothes, careful not to rip them with his still extended claws, more out of principle than actual regard for the clothing, drops them beside the sink, and steps into the tub. He turns on the water and tips his head back, welcoming the cold water and letting it wash over his face; taking away the remnants of the phantom smoke and ash. He stands there until his toes go numb three times over before the blood flows again, and his fingers have pruned. 

He steps out of the tub, skin scrubbed raw. Derek breathes in and doesn’t choke on smoke and ash.

It’s bright outside, and the first sun rays of the morning shine into the hallway. 

Derek leaves. 

Some days it's hard to stay in the house. The memories become too much, too overpowering, too real. So he runs. He runs within the property line, he runs into the preserve, he runs past the town boundaries. He runs and runs and runs until his body feels like it’s falling to pieces and his mind feels like anything but. 

But no matter how long he stays away or how far he goes, Derek always comes back to the house. Because no matter how much it hurts to stay, leaving would mean things he can’t even try to comprehend, and that’s enough of a reason to keep coming back.

Today though, Derek doesn’t have the energy to run, the nightmare laying heavy on his shoulders and persistent behind his eyes. So instead, he walks. He tries to focus on the sound of the grass and the smell of the wind, which whisks him away, far from the turmoil in his head. 

He walks for hours until the sun is marginally higher in the sky, and he reaches a small pond. 

The property is more than 6 acres of untouched forestry, with many small lakes, ponds and creeks, but despite its size, there isn’t a single inch of the land that Derek hasn’t seen.

He sits down at the edge of the pond and doesn’t bother rolling up his jeans before dropping his feet into the water. It’s surprisingly cool considering it's the beginning of summer. 

With a sigh, Derek closes his eyes and lays back. 

The sun shines brightly in front of his eyelids, making his vision bright orange and casting a blanket of warmth on his body, ironically mirroring his nightmare from this morning.

\- - -

Derek isn’t sure when he dozed off, but the sound of heavy footsteps on the forest floor jerks him awake. A few seconds later, a kid emerges from behind the trees on the other side of the pond. 

The kid freezes, and his eyes widen when he sees Derek, now standing a foot away from the pond. Derek fights the urge to cross his arms across his bare chest. Instead, he clenches his hands into fists and straightens his spine.

“This is private property.”

The kid mutters a string of profanities no 12-year-old should know, let alone  _ verbalize _ , but doesn’t make a move.

Derek clenches his jaw.

Fucking kids. The last thing he needs is some kid going around doing stupid, probably even illegal, shit on peoples’ properties. Specifically, on Derek’s property.

“What are you doing here?  _ This is private property _ ,” Derek says, louder in case the kid didn’t hear him.

The kid raises a hand to rub the back of his head. “Uh, yeah, I heard, I mean, I, uh, I didn’t know,” the kid stammers out. “I’ll just,” he gestures vaguely behind him, “I’m just going to… go.”

He barely manages to finish his sentence before he scrambles backwards and almost brains himself on a tree in his haste to get away. 

Derek doesn’t stop staring at his retreating back, and the kid doesn’t stop glancing back until he disappears behind the trees. 

Derek listens until the kid’s heartbeat fades away. After staring at the trees the kid disappeared behind for a few long minutes, in a fit of unease, Derek circles around the pond and goes after him. 

It makes Derek want to cover his nose; the kid’s smell, whether that’s in aversion or confusion, he’s not quite sure. Sweat, medication, pen ink, and stale coffee were the first, more overpowering smells, and the bizarre combination made inhaling and following the scent sickly inexorable, almost like car paint; chemically pungent but nearly impossible to not breathe it in. 

Trailing a good ten meters behind him, Derek follows the kid back to a beat-up jeep parked on the side of the road. During the entire fifteen minute trek, the kid mumbled incoherent nonsense without cease. And despite hearing every word clearly, Derek couldn’t even begin to follow his line of thought. He caught a couple words and names here and there, but for the most part, the kid’s desultory rant went on even as Derek watched him tug the door of the jeep open, throw himself behind the wheel and jam the key into the ignition. 

The engine starting up drowns out the sound of the kid’s voice, but Derek can still see his mouth moving and face contorting into different expressions. 

Derek watches as he shifts gears and drives off. He keeps watching long after the jeep disappears down a slope and out of sight.

\- - -

Despite the bright sunshine, the house is still dark and just shy of cold. The thick layers of soot coat the windows, preventing any light from coming through.

_ 56, 57, 58, 59, ... _

Derek’s arms shake as he relentlessly descends and pushes back up continuously. 

There’s only so much to do during the day, and the only way Derek can make the seconds go by faster is by pushing his body past any and all limits. He’s made it into a grotesque sort of game; seeing how far he can push himself, nudging the line a little further every day.

Two hours later, Derek’s dripping sweat and his muscles quiver when he drops to the ground, cheek pressed against the hardwood. He watches as a bead of sweat travels across his brow bone, slips down the bridge of his nose, and slides across his cheek. 

He breathes in short bursts, breath blowing the thick layer of dust away. He stares at the dust particles floating away. It’s funny how despite this being the part of the house he occupies the most often, it seems to be the dustiest. 

Pushing himself over, Derek lays down flat on his back and glares at the ceiling above him. 

For the latter part of his workout, Derek found it harder and harder to focus, his mind wandering back to the kid from this morning. He’s not the first little delinquent—Derek’s not sure when or why he pitted the kid as a delinquent—to come bounding into the preserve like it’s his backyard and he’s definitely not the last, but there was something about the kid that didn’t sit right with Derek. Something about the encounter made a strange feeling settle under his skin. 

He wishes he had something else to do, something other than stare at the ceiling in paranoia. 

It’s not long before, for the second time that day, his eyes drift shut. 

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's chapter 2, thank you to everyone that read, left kudos, and subscribed. i literally love you.
> 
> you guys, seeing people leave kudos and stuff really made my day <3
> 
> enjoy and let me know what you think :)

“Fucking Scott,” Stiles grumbles. He shifts gears and winces at the clunk and grind. “Why couldn’t he just go looking for his inhaler after work?”

He pitches his voice lower, “ _You know I’m meeting up with Allison later, bro_ ,” he mimics, a shoddy imitation of Scott from this morning. “That’s why.”

He drives past a stop line without stopping because this road’s pretty much dead during the day anyway, it’s not worth wearing out his brake pads. He’s managed to get away with not replacing them for the past 3 months since the station’s mechanic checked out his jeep’s radiator and told him that the pads are completely worn out, but he knows that they’re not going to last much longer, ergo he’s taken to avoiding using his brakes as much as possible. And yes, he knows that sounds absolutely, ridiculously dangerous but it’s not. Well, not really. The roads are pretty deserted in Beacon Hills, it’s not exactly the most happening town in California. 

So it’s been working out pretty well for him so far.

And he’s not having to dish out about a thousand dollars to switch out these pads. A thousand dollars that he doesn’t have. A thousand dollars that he could potentially ask his dad for but will do nothing of the sort because he’s seen the steadily increasing number of mail piling up on his dad’s bedside table with ‘overdue’ stamped on them in bright red letters.

So he’s just going to ride out the jeep until it inevitably breaks down and then he’ll take the bus until he figures out a way to pay for the repairs.

To distract himself from worrying, Stiles bitches about Scott and his horrible date locations—because who goes on a date in the fucking forest anyways?—to the walls of his jeep. The whole thing about talking to yourself being a sign of insanity is totally unfair because some people need to get their thoughts out of their heads. And it’s better than unloading all your pent up bullshit on someone else and ruin their day too. So he yells at Scott alone and doesn’t stop until he pulls up into the driveway.

He hates getting mad at Scott. They’re buddies, have been since literally the beginning of time and no matter what, at the end of the day, they’ve always been there for each other. It’s probably why he can’t stay mad at him for longer than 2 seconds, he doesn’t know how to.

He drops his head down on the steering wheel. 

But sometimes, it feels like if it weren’t for their childhood tying them together, Stiles wouldn’t even be on Scott’s priorities list. It feels like he _is_ slipping further and further down that list, like Scott is getting a girlfriend, and making friends with Isaac from biology, and figuring out that he wants to become a veterinarian like his boss, and _growing up_ while Stiles is still the same. Still doing the same things, cracking the same jokes, wearing the same clothes. Still pining for Lydia even though it’s pretty damn clear she won’t spare him the time of day. The list goes on. He’s still the same spaz he was at thirteen while everyone around him is changing, evolving, learning who they really are.

Banging his head against the steering wheel a couple times, he curses himself. 

This is stupid, Stiles know people don’t progress at equal paces and that _'everyone has their own individual path and timeline'_ , he recites in his head. He knows this because he’s read about fifty articles and books about the human progression. But that doesn’t mean he won’t feel like shit about it. 

Breathing out, Stiles lifts his head up and yanks his keys out of the ignition. 

There’s no point in wasting time and sulking in the driveway. He might as well get started on the readings for the coming year.

\- - -

Two hours later, Stiles is halfway through the first module of his physics textbook that he bought the first day of summer break because he’s not just born smart, he’s got to actually put in the time and effort to make sure his grades don’t tank. Also, he’s got nothing better to do. 

But two hours of scribbling notes has his hand all cramped up and his brain about to explode from the effort to stay on task, so he tosses his pen down on his desk and gets up, his back cracking an almost concerning amount. 

Making his way downstairs, Stiles looks around the living room, trying to find something to do before he decides that, fuck it, he’s just going to make lunch and dinner now so he doesn’t have to do it later. 

Somehow, no matter what Stiles thinks he’s going to do during the day, he either ends up procrastinating doing productive work by doing some other kind of productive work, or he does absolutely nothing and fucks around on the internet. There’s no in-between. Today, he’s on the former side of the spectrum.

He takes the time to flip through his mom’s entire recipe book, he does this every time before he cooks even if he doesn’t end up making anything from it. Stiles decides on noodles and cabbage—he can’t pronounce the actual name of the dish—because it’s his dad’s favourite. Stiles wishes he’d learnt how to speak Polish from his mom, but apparently learning a new language wasn’t exactly at the top of nine-year-old him’s priority list. 

Stiles follows the recipe to the T, pausing to run his fingers over his mom’s handwriting as he moves down the instructions.

By the time he’s adding the noodles to the cooked cabbage and turning off the stove, the house is filled with the smell of spices, browned onions, and _childhood_ , and Stiles’ heart feels heavy. His eyes prick with unshed tears and even though there’s no one here to see him, he sikes himself out of crying and walks out of the kitchen. He takes the stairs two at a time, appetite long gone, and goes back to his room, barely managing to not slam the door behind him. 

Stiles only lets the tears slip past his eyelids when he drops himself face first on his bed, nose pressed into the sheets, blocking out the smell of nostalgia.

And for the first time in years, Stiles cries himself to sleep, his sorrow blanketing around him.

  
  
  



End file.
